Love Always Remains
by newxyorkxloser
Summary: Carly looks at me, and I'm not sure if she looks pissed off or confused or a combination of the two, but then she's leaning her head against me shoulder and looking out at the water with me. CarlyxSam oneshot/sequel to the biggest lie.


This was going to be fiction but I don't have it in me anymore.

You can read this as a sequel to The Biggest Lie, or as a stand alone. Whatever you want. Enjoy I hope.

Just so a quick warning: sex, drugs, the whole shebang.

--

She's got this look on her face that I've never seen in all the years that we've been friends, like something vital just cracked and broke inside her, and then melted onto the floor and took whatever it is that makes her smile with it when she tells me that it's over and she doesn't know what to do without that crazy, borderline abusive now ex-girlfriend of hers.

"You'll be okay," I tell her, because I don't know what else I'm supposed to say, and I'm hoping the tone of my voice says more than the words themselves, because alone they really aren't much.

"I know, it's just a matter of when," Carly says, biting her lip like she's trying not to cry even though there's tears welling up in her eyes.

I kind of wish I knew how to build a time machine right about now, but I don't, so I sit here and stare at her because I've never really been one for words, and then I hug her, and she feels like a stick woman when she hugs me back, and I guess that whatever it was that broke and left in her took her ability to hug with it.

"Fuck," She says simply, and even then it hurts hearing her like this. Actually, physically hurts, which is kind of fucked up since it's not even me who got dumped.

Maybe I just care too much.

She looks at me, forces a smile and says, "Can we go drown my sorrow in smoothies?"

"Anything you desire, my darling," I tell her, grinning sheepishly.

--

I'm sitting on my bathroom floor with a cigarette dangling precariously from my lips and a cup of lukewarm coffee sitting on the floor next to me, and I'm not really sure why I'm sitting here to be completely honest, but it's just one of the weird things that I like to do and I've learned not to question it. It's not really worth it. I'll never understand.

So it's three in the morning, and I'm most definitely not waking up for school in the morning. Who's gonna stop me?

Yeah, nobody. I thought so.

I'm bored. Bored bored bored bored.

Bored.

..

...

Well nevermind, I was kind of hoping that if I sat here and went brain dead for a couple of seconds, maybe something exciting and amusing would come to mind, but nope, nothing so far.

Ow. Motherfucking fuck. I just burnt myself with my cigarette.

Well, that was the most exciting thing that's happened all night. So maybe I was right after all.

I'm just a little bit pathetic. No need to point it out, I'm perfectly aware of the fact.

I could get stoned. That always makes everything seem like fun. I think. I'm too tired and delirious to even remember at this point, but at the same time I'm not tired at all, I'm perfectly and completely awake and incapable of falling asleep. It's kind of a dilemma.

I think I'll get stoned. What else do I have to do?

I'm pulling myself up off the floor, stumbling just the tiniest little bit while my vision blurs momentarily and then corrects itself. I probably have blood sugar problems or something, which wouldn't surprise me too much since my mom was diabetic until five or six years ago.

Wait, does diabetes ever go away?

I'm too tired to think about it, and even if I wasn't, I don't really think I'd care at this point. I'm seventeen and thin, so I don't think I have too much to worry about until my metabolism slows down.

Once I've made my way to my room, I start pulling open doors looking for rolling papers and the half ounce of pot I keep somewhere in my room, but can never quite remember where, until I find an already rolled joint and smile a little inside, thanking god or life, whichever you prefer, for small favors like this.

Feeling quite happy with myself, I saunter back into my bathroom, plop onto the floor and light up, remembering for the hundred millionth time just how good pot smoke tastes.

I'm in the middle of my fourth hit when my phone vibrates against my foot, and I can't help but ask myself who else in the world would be awake right now and would call me.

Just for a second though, because I know it's Carly.

"Hey," I say, hitting the speaker button and tapping ashes into my toilet. "I would ask what you're doing at three in the morning, but I don't think I want to know about your masturbation techniques,"

"Sam?" She asks, her voice cracking just the tiniest little bit like something's wrong and she wants me to know without having to say so herself.

"What's up?"

"Are you doing anything right now?"

"Carly, it's three in the morning and I don't sound the least bit tired, what do you think I'm doing?" I ask, taking another hit and blowing smoke out of my nose.

"You're either masturbating or smoking," She knows me so well. I'm proud.

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner," I say, laughing a little bit and picking at one of my fingernails. Yes, I do pick at my nails and I'm damn proud.

"I'm coming over," She tells me. She doesn't ask, because she knows that I have nothing better to do and she knows that I'm not going to say no, because it's not like I ever have anything important to tend to at three in the morning. This happens a lot more than you might think.

"I love how you just invite yourself over, for all you know my hamster just died," I say, faking some kind of muffled sob.

"Sam, you don't have a hamster and you know you need the company," She says, and I can tell that she's smiling just the tiniest little bit.

See, I don't make this stuff up. She knows. Carly just has magic powers like that.

"Call me when you're outside, I'll let you in,"

Fifteen minutes and two cigarettes later, Carly's sitting across from me on my bathroom floor and we're passing a pipe back and forth, and her eyes aren't just red from getting stoned, but she isn't saying why and I'm not sure I want to ask. If she wanted to tell me she'd been crying over that stupid girl, she'd tell me. If she wanted to talk about it, she would've brought it up by now.

It's kind of a mutual understanding that when she calls at three in the morning and invites herself over that something's wrong.

I'm looking up at the ceiling and wondering just how she's feeling right now. I'm wondering if maybe she's wondering the same thing about me, if she still ever thinks about me, because I know she used to. I know that we never really happened, that it wouldn't have worked and I've learned to live with that. I'm glad I did, really, because I couldn't lose her.

Yeah, there was something between us a year and a half ago when we were sixteen. Okay, a lot more than something that ended up in sex in the front seat of my old pickup truck that's since been totaled, and then in her walking away from it all, and you would think that we wouldn't be friends after that, but as the weeks went by we learned to just not talk about it and let time fix what we couldn't.

I'll admit I wonder what could've happened. I'll admit that I wonder what went through her head then, and I'll admit that I wish things could've been different, but I'm happy where we are now.

"So how's Kayla?" She asks, passing me my bowl and lighter and looking away from me while she blows smoke at the window.

"I think she's cheating on me," I tell her, flicking my bic and taking the longest hit my torn up lungs can manage, and holding it in until they feel like they're ready to burst in my chest and collapse in on themselves.

"Again?"

"I dunno, I think I'm just paranoid," I shrug, acting like the relationship I've had for the last year matters a lot less than it does. And it's weird, because there are some days where I just can't bring myself to care enough to cry or do anything but yell at the poor girl and question anything and everything, but then there are days when I just want to sit and cry and hug her, but I can't do that because she's a thousand miles away sitting in a house in Kansas City.

I guess I don't know what to think or feel. I never really have.

"She's no good for you," She tells me, picking at pieces of fabric on the mat on the floor.

"I know," I sigh, reaching for another cigarette and lighting it while she packs another bowl.

I glance out the window and look at the glow of the streetlights at four in the morning, and the glare of the occasional headlights of the late night club kids bringing home their newest fucktoys and the poor early risers who have to be at work by five thirty to serve coffee and bagels for minimum wage. "It's raining again," I say simply, resting my chin in my hand and inhaling deeply from my marlboro.

"We live in Seattle," She's reminding me, as though I could've forgotten where I've lived the last seventeen and a half years.

"This is true,"

And then we fall into silence, her feet pressing against mine while we take turns hitting my bowl and getting higher and higher, as if we could really fly away if we just smoked enough and forget whatever we don't want or need anymore, but even drugs don't have that much power, and pot just ties me further down to earth and pulls me more and more into my own head.

Out of nowhere, she's shifted so that she's sitting next to me with her head on my shoulder, and I look over at her, wondering what she's doing and she just smiles the saddest smile while tears well up in her eyes again and creep down her cheeks, and then buries her face in my shoulder with her arms around my neck. It's weird, but I know exactly why she's crying and what's going through her head, how she doesn't know what she's going to do now and she feels so fucking alone right now, even though I'm sitting here right next to her.

"It'll be okay Carly, you're gonna move on and you're gonna find somebody who's so much better," I tell her softly, twisting my fingers around in her hair the way I always have, and she shakes her head against me and doesn't say another word, so we sit in silence again while I finish smoking the bowl on my own.

I could kiss her, I'm thinking. I could want to kiss her, need to kiss her, and I could mean everything I've said as so much more than the rekindled best friend relationship kind of way, and maybe she thinks that's how I mean it all, but I don't. I just care, I really do. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

It's weird, really, because I love her as much as is humanly possible without being in love with her. I love her for what she's done for me and I love her for all the words she's said and I love her for how much she cares, but I just won't go there again.

A lot of things about us are weird and inexplicable, and I've learned by now that questioning it is kind of pointless, and trying to explain it is just a waste of time.

I'd try to explain how I feel about her, how I've been moments away from crying over what almost was, not because I'm not over her but just because I could've been so goddamn happy, but it's not worth it. I know what it is.

"Thanks," She finally says softly, shifting away from me and laying back on the ground.

I guess we're both pretty lucky.

--

By seven in the morning, I'm on my fifth cup of coffee and she's on her third and we've got bags under our eyes that we can't even be bothered to try to cover with makeup, and we're smoking cigarettes in the kitchen and laughing delirious laughs at the noises the pipes in the sink make while my mom runs around frantically looking for her eyeliner, cursing about how she's going to be late for work and she can't lose her job because the rent is due at the end of the week, as though she holds the only waitressing job in the whole city.

"God damnit, Sam, darling, would you pour me a cup of coffee?" She snaps, fumbling in her purse for her backup eyeliner, which yes, she does keep and she has affectionately named Colin.

No, I don't know why.

"Chill mom, here," I say, handing her my cup and starting another pot for me and Carly.

"Fuck, can I have a couple of cigarettes? I don't have any," She asks, nearly stabbing herself in the eye with Colin the emergency eyeliner.

"No mom, you're like 40, you can just go buy a pack,"

"Oh for god's sake," She mumbles, cursing under her breath and then storming out the door.

"Can you pick up a carton of marlboros on your way home from work?" I shout after her, tapping my ashes into our dinner plate ashtray.

Carly looks at me for a moment, almost dumbfounded, before she bursts out in laughter. My mother never ceases to provide an endless source of amusement, even if we do feel kind of bad for her.

"God, I love her," Carly says, sipping her coffee and rubbing her eyes.

"I know, she's great," I reply, standing up and running the water in the sink. I might as well do the dishes. "So is it safe to assume that we're skipping today?"

"Mhm. Let's drive somewhere,"

That's something that I don't think is ever going to change. She'll always be the only person that I'll love to have riding shotgun in the new truck with me, driving to nowhere, drinking iced coffee and smoking cigarettes and looking out at the countryside.

"Do you have money for gas? I'm kind of broke from that half o and I'm not getting paid until next Tuesday," I say, running hot water over my hands.

"Yeah, I just have to stop by my apartment and tell Spencer to call the school and say I have swine flu or something,"

I look over my shoulder at her and smile softly, and for just a moment I want to do nothing more than hug her, to hug anyone really, and I contemplate it for a moment, and she just sits there and smiles back at me like she understands, because she does. At least, I think she does. Maybe she just thinks that I'm creepy or sleep deprived or both.

It's just a moment though, and nothing can stop time and so it passes, like everything always does, and then I'm turning back to the dishes and assaulting them with soap and a sponge and I can hear her opening the fridge behind me.

I glance out the window, and it's still raining, but it's not the stereotypical northwestern rain, it's just a soft patter against the windows and it's almost relaxing. No, it is relaxing, and I like it.

"Do you want to go to Portland?" I ask, without looking away from the window.

"How far is that?" She asks, while she looks around in the fridge for something that even slightly resembles edible food.

"Like, two and a half hours. And if you're trying to find something for breakfast, forget about it, the closest thing to 'food' in there is blue cheese, and I don't mean the good kind, I mean like cheddar cheese that has fur now,"

"I'm sure there's somethin--Oh, god, it _does_ have fur," She practically squeals, slamming the refrigerator door shut.

"Yeah, we're getting McDonald's or something for breakfast," I say, putting the last plate on the drying rack and turning the water off. "So, Portland?"

"Portland," She says, picking up our packs of cigarettes and putting them in her bag.

"Should I bring some bud?"

"I thought that was a given," She says, reaching for the blue bowl on the table and putting that in her bag as well.

I grin at her, and I've lost all the appreciation for the little things and my love of roadtrips and my weird, turning everything into fake philosophies moment is over, because I'm enticed again by the idea of climbing higher than I've spent the last six hours floating up to.

--

We're driving through Olympia with two new packs of cigarettes and three empty cups of coffee sitting between our seats, and I've got the windows rolled down and crisp September air on my face when she asks if I ever wonder if I'm going to regret the way we're living some day.

"Fuck no, Carly. I'm living exactly the life I want to be living, fuck school, fuck making all those fuckers happy, I'm not wasting this while I have it," And in that moment, I believe it. I believe that I'm never going to regret all the failing grades and knowing that I'm wasted potential, that my heart's worn down far beyond it's years from too many sleepless nights and a few hundred too many lines of cocaine stuffed up my nose. I believe that I'll never be like my mother, single with a daughter who's just as much of a dead end as she is, making $2.75 an hour plus tips as a waitress in the same city she's been her whole life. I believe that one day I'll get out of Seattle, out of Washington and off the west coast and I'll find something to do with my time. That one day, I'll wake up with everything handed to me and I'll be happy.

Deep down though, I'm smarter than that. I'm smarter than thinking that there's such a thing as living without regrets, because we'll all have unspoken words and a wasted youth and a countless number of what ifs and could've beens when we're laying on our death beds.

"Roll me a joint, would you?" I ask, changing the subject before I can overthink if I'll regret this too.

I'm lucky enough that Carly learned how to roll quickly, and she's able to roll a pretty decent joint in her lap in a moving car that isn't really the most stable thing in the world at sixty miles per hour.

"Fuck, fucking christ, Carly, look at that," I say, pointing out the window at the water and trees passing by, and I've decided that I have to stand in front of it, and I'm looking for the nearest exit and then decide, fuck it, and pull over on the side of I-5 and then jump out of the truck, cigarette in my hand, and I lean over the concrete guard at the side of the road.

She follows me, newly rolled joint tucked behind her ear, and she's got this look on her face like she's forgotten about Holly and this misery she's been carrying around with her, like she's just lost in the beauty of the water in the early morning and the feeling all the pot brings.

She could just be faking it, but I don't know why.

"I can't regret this," I say softly, and she nods her head just the tiniest bit, like she hates to admit that doing anything against the rules could lead to anything but regret, even while she's standing that next to me and lighting her joint.

--

"You know, I just realized, what the hell is in Portland anyway?" I ask, staring at the road ahead of me and the sign welcoming us to Oregon.

"I have no idea. I was kind of hoping you knew," She replies, sipping our fourth iced coffee and trying to smooth her hair with her hands.

"Nope, it was just the first city I could think of that isn't in Canada or the east coast or California," I admit, laughing and groping blindly for the coffee.

Carly sits there for a moment, almost like she's dumbfounded, before she starts laughing along with me like she should've known better to think that I, Samantha Puckett, would ever do anything that was planned.

"You know, this is the first time I've ever been outside of Washington," I say, and I'm not sure what emotion I'm trying to convey because I'm not sure what emotions I'm feeling, because in some weird way, this feels like something momentous and deep but that's just my dumb mind talking, trying to tell me that everything has to hold some kind of obscure deeper meaning.

"Really?"

"Yeah," I say, turning the sound up on the radio and rolling the window down a little further.

"But you've got that map in your room with all those thumb tacks stuck in it," She says, "I thought those were all the places you've been,"

"It's where I want to go before I die, whenever that might be,"

She's quiet again, like she does when she realizes that she's been so completely wrong about something, and I'm torn for a moment between explaining or just falling into silence with her and drowning in radiowaves.

"I mean, my mom's never really had much money and my dad hasn't been around since I was a kid, we can hardly pay rent, let alone pay to get out of Washington," I tell her, even though I'm not really sure what I'm saying or what I'm trying to say. "She's never liked to travel, I guess she never understood the point. I guess that's where I'm my father's daughter, 'cause he couldn't stand being in one place. He hated sameness, and I guess that's why he left. He stayed while he could, he saw what he wanted and then he moved on and we stayed behind. It's not because they didn't care about each other, you know? It's that whole, if you love something let it go kind of thing. They cared too much to make the other suffer for their happiness,"

I'm rambling and I don't really know why, but it feels good because I've never really acknowledged my estranged mother as anything more than comic relief.

"I love her and all, you know? But I keep that map to remind myself that I'm not her, that I'm going to get out of here one day and leave this all in my dust,"

"Yeah," She finally says softly, like she's choosing her words carefully and she understands what this means, even though I'm not too sure myself, "I know what you mean,"

--

The truck's sitting in a parking lot three blocks away and we're sitting and looking down at the river from a grassy patch near some street called North Interstate Avenue, and I'm tossing rocks into the water and watching the ripples until they fade away and all that's left is the image burnt into my mind.

"Well, what're we gonna do now?" She asks, standing beside me, and I look up at her, fishing around in my mind for the right words.

"Shh," I tell her simply, reaching up and softly grabbing her hand and tugging gently until she's sitting in the grass next to me. "Just sit here with me,"

Carly looks at me, and I'm not sure if she looks pissed off or confused or a combination of the two, but then she's leaning her head against me shoulder and looking out at the water with me.

--

It's four in the afternoon when we get tired of driving around Portland, buying coffees and window shopping, and just plain old get tired, and fifteen minutes later we're back in Washington and Carly's slumped against the window, barely awake and still trying to act like she isn't tired, and I can't help but laugh at her.

"Go to sleep you," I tell her, turning off the radio and flicking my cigarette butt out the window.

"Not tired," She mumbles against the glass, and I'm smiling at her and shaking my head.

"Like hell you're not, you've got bags under your eyes that make it look like you got beat up,"

"Shut up," She slurs, rubbing her eyes self consciously.

"You shut up," I tell her, poking her cheek and trying not to notice the goosebumps on her arm, but then I feel bad because I'm the one who has my window down and I'm unzipping my sweatshirt and laying it over her chest, and somehow managing to not crash. "G'night,"

She looks over at me, and then snuggles into my sweatshirt and mumbles, "G'night Sam, you'd better not kill me while I'm sleeping,"

"I shan't, m'dear,"

--

I have a thing with dates. Don't ask me why, I don't really know, I just know that I do. I try to turn my entire life into a movie on repeat with different names and faces, but in the end I tie everything to the year before and the year before that and try to fit together the pieces of my lifelong self destruction. It's like I tell myself the same lies over and over again, as if I'm honestly happy smoking pot every day or snorting lines of coke or single and sleeping around.

I hate liars, I really do, but it seems like I tell more lies than anyone I know.

Maybe I just hate people that remind me of myself.

I'm scrolling through songs on my computer and the dates I added them and the last time they were played, like if I lose myself in the dates and numbers I might be able to go back in time and stop myself from turning into who I am now. I know it doesn't work like that, but nostalgia has as bittersweet a taste as cocaine and we all know how addictive coke is.

I don't know what I'm going on about.

It's like, all my weird habits and actions make perfect sense to me, at least in the moment, but they seem insane to anyone watching and as time passes and I turn into someone else watching myself, they seem insane to me too.

There's this one song that I downloaded by The La's called There She Goes right before me and Carly fell apart but I still had no idea what was going to happen, and really, now that I think about it, I can't remember when I've felt so safe since then.

Oh fuck, this is the last thing I need to be thinking about right now. Not just the stupid fucking song, all of this. Any of this. The stupid dates and my stupid life cycle are the last thing I need on my mind right now, and so is Carly and our almost.. whatever we were. I can't do this. I'm setting myself up to be miserable for the rest of the day or week or month or however long because I'll be waiting for something new to make me forget myself but it's not going to come along. Life just doesn't work like that. It doesn't. I wish it did but it doesn't and I have to fucking get over it.

Stupid songs. Stupid numbers and dates and love and stupid everything. Stupid mind. Stupid insanity.

Stupid me.

Yeah, I think I just lost my mind.

I can't even figure out if I miss her or if I just miss the feelings, and really, I don't want to know which one it is. It won't end well.

Oh hey, I went to a party a year ago tonight. I wonder if there's a party tonight too. That'd be nice. I need to get fucking drunk and fuck some strang--

My phone is ringing. Wonderful.

"What's up?"

"Sam?" I'm pretty sure it's Freddie. I'm too lazy to look at the caller ID, I figure I'll realize who it is in the next thirty seconds.

"Who else answers my phone?"

"This is true. There's a party tonight at what's-her-face's place, wanna go?" Yeah, it's Freddie.

"Since when have I ever turned down a party? I'll pick you up in ten," Jesus, that's just fucking weird. Maybe someone's stalking me and they threw a party just to freak me out.

Except that'd be just a tiny bit ridiculous.

"Alright, I'll see you then, peace," And the line goes dead.

Fredward actually turned pretty cute over the years. He's not quite so bad anymore, I'll give him that much.

No, I'm not going to get drunk and fuck him. Don't even think about that, I don't care if he's Taylor fucking Kitsche, I will never sleep with Freddie.

--

"Sam, you know you're supposed to turn left there, right?" Freddie asks, hitting the joint I rolled for him. I love him sometimes--he buys his own weed and he can hardly roll a decent joint.

"I'm not going to a party without a six pack, that's just rude,"

"Since when have you cared about rudeness, a, and b, you're seventeen," He tells me, moving to roll down the window.

"Don't even think about it, we're hot boxing this shit, and do you really think anyone around here cares how old I am? How do you think I buy cigarettes?"

"Your mom?"

"No."

I'm pulling over into a parking lot outside what most would see as the sketchiest looking convenience store in Seattle, and what I see as heaven.

"Light a cigarette, I don't care if you smoke it or not, but the cops are complete asses around here," I tell him, tossing my mostly empty pack of marlboros at him.

The second I walk into the store, the thirty something year old Mexican gives me the same creepy, 'please for the love of god, suck my dick,' look that he always gives me, and I repay him with some kind of smile that I'm sure he takes the wrong way, and grab a six pack of Sam Adams.

"Can I get a pack of Marlboro seventy twos? No, not those, the reds," He grabbed a pack of lights. I refuse to pay for crappy lights that I can just take from my mom at home. "Oh hell, can I get two?"

"That'll be seventeen eighty two," He tells me, bagging my six pack as he hands me my cigarettes.

"Thank you, my good man, keep the change," I say, handing him a twenty and lighting the cigarette behind my ear on my way out the door.

Once I'm back at my truck, I grin at Freddie with a cigarette in my mouth and drop my bag in front of his feet.

"Nobody gives a shit about how old I am," I repeat, laughing while I roll a joint of my own.

"Hey, Sam, you know there's a cop right over there, right?" He says, raising his hand to point out the car, but I grab his arm. The last thing I want is a cop knowing that we're doing something that would make my passenger point him out.

"I know, put your feet on that, would you?"

I switch to reverse, pull out of the lot, drive around in circles for fifteen minutes and then finally pull into whoever's house we're going to.

He tells me that I'm insane, and I laugh and ask how long it took him to figure that out, and then stroll in the front door and leave my beer on the table. Not my beer anymore.

I'll just keep telling myself that I like the life I'm living with a beer in my hand.

--

She's got her hands in my hair and my knee's between her legs, and she's looking at me for a split second with this dazed, drunken look on her face, and I just look back at her and laugh a little.

"Jessica, you are so fucking drunk," I tell her, in case she hasn't realized, and she laughs and shakes her head, running a hand down to the small of my back, twisting her fingers around my belt loop and I'm grinning suggestively back at her.

"You are so fucking high right now," She replies, pushing her hips up against my knee.

"You have no idea," And then I'm kissing her again, my fingers under her shirt and fumbling with her bra strap.

I think promiscuity comes hand in hand with being an avid drug enthusiast.

She's got her hands on my sides now, wrapping her fingers around my ribs and I'm coaxing her tongue into my mouth, running my teeth along it, and I guess my ability to fuck isn't diminished by all the ecstasy and pot and alcohol in my system because there's goosebumps popping up along the skin on her arms. I can tell by the way she shivers, just the tiniest little bit.

"Fuck," Jessica breathes against my lips, and I'm looking down at her again while I pull her shirt over her head and she tosses her bra onto the floor of my truck.

She moans and her breath cuts off in time with the way she jerks her hips against me whenever I bite her neck, and she's practically scratching holes in my back with her nails and it's actually kind of a turn on.

Not that I need to be any more turned on than I already am.

I'm kissing around her nipple now, and she's breathing all jagged and broken and her hand's back in my hair and jerking my head just the tiniest bit to the left, and I'm not even going to try to fight it.

"Fuck fucking fuck," She pants, and then she laughs at herself while I trace lines and circles down her stomach with my tongue, my hands undoing her belt and jeans, and then they're joining her bra and shirt on the floor and my head's between her legs.

She moans again, and again, and I've got my fingers inside her and as the minutes go by the sound just escalates and the way her hips buck upwards just amplifies until her breath catches in her throat and her thighs tremble next to my head and then relax, and she's done.

I trail my eyes up her naked body for a moment or two, and then lay over her, propped up by my hands while her breathing slows down along with mine, and I kiss her cheek softly, reveling in the feelings of fucking on x.

Five minutes later, we're both sitting up and she's trying to fix her hair, like it really matters right now, and I light a cigarette.

"You smoke?" I ask, exhaling while I talk.

"When I drink," She says, still trying to flatten her hair.

"So, like, now, pretty much." I say, handing her my cigarette and lighting another for myself.

"Thanks," Jessica says softly, taking a drag deep enough that it could almost rival me. Almost.

We sit in silence for a minute, smoking our cigarettes and staring out the windows at the streetlights, until she says, "That was really good,"

I never really know what I'm supposed to say to that.

"Uhm, thanks," I mumble, flicking my ashes out the window. All of a sudden, the last thing I want to think about is sex and my mind's racing, flashing back to Carly and the night in my old truck, and how different things were then.

She's watching me, I can feel her eyes on me, and I'm trying not to shake but I do anyway.

"You peaking?"

"Mhm," I say softly, leaning my head against her shoulder and twisting my fingers through her hair. It's so soft and right now it's the most amazing feeling in the world, just feeling someone against me and feeling something so damn smooth.

"Do you want me to--"

"No." I tell her simply. I'm not sure if that came out sounding cold or angry, it might've, but I didn't mean it to. I don't want sex. I want to just sit here and listen to her breathing and know that I'm not alone.

I wonder what would've been different if she'd never walked away.

Aw, fuck, stupid mind. Shut up. I can't think about Carly or the past right now, I'll just get them confused and think that I love her all over again. But I don't.

Right?

Right.

It's just the memories and the feelings, it's not her.

"Have you ever fallen in love with a memory?" And it sounds weird, but it makes perfect sense to me.

She shifts and looks down at me, and I'm looking back up at her now, and she's giving me the strangest look like she thinks I'm insane, but that can't be right because I just feel so fucking close to everyone and everything right now that she has to understand. I hardly even know this girl but I know that she's reading my brainwaves and she knows the feeling exactly.

"I don't know," She says, taking a drag from the cigarette dangling precariously between her fingers, like for a moment she'd forgotten it was even there.

"I mean like, you never fell for somebody but they made you so fucking happy that you couldn't believe it and then they left and you accepted it, but two god damn years later you're getting high and wishing you had the past back? Like you could just live in those moments again, just be able to feel the way you did for even an instant?" I'm rambling and trying to be coherent and make some kind of sense, but I'm not sure if I am. I'm not sure of anything at this point, really.

"So you wish you could like, time travel?" She asks, laughing a little bit but I'm not sure if it's at herself or me or just absolutely nothing and she's laughing for the sake of laughing.

"I don't know,"

She looks at me again, and it's almost like she looks sad. Almost, and she tells me, "Time travel only works in forward, Sam. Maybe if you could just let go of the past, you'd already be happy, y'know? The memories are nice, but they're gone and you're going to waste your whole life away if you can't stop living in them,"

I guess she isn't just a giggly, horny kind of drunk.

"So you do know what I mean,"

"I think everyone misses something enough by now that they know what you mean," She says softly, flicking her cigarette butt out the passenger side window. "So who's the girl?"

"Carly Shay,"

She's quiet for a moment, and then she says, "It's not worth it Sam. That girl's even more of a mess than you and me, and she's got even less of an idea of what she wants,"

"You too, huh?"

"Yeah, me too,"

Fuck you, Carly, fuck you.

No, not fuck you. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I don't even know why I care or what I love, but I love something in my head so fucking much that it might just start to hurt soon, and I'm not getting my heart broken by a year and a half old memory. Not when I try so damn hard to let the here and now float past in a blur and I can't even feel what's happening in the moment. No fucking way is the fucking past going to break me.

Even if it already did.

"Do you want me to take you home?" I ask, feeling myself shaking and I'm trying t tally the pills I've popped tonight, but there's no way I overdosed or something. I'd be puking and turning blue already if I had.

"You're not gonna listen to me, are you?"

I don't say anything to that, because I refuse to lie and I refuse to admit that she's right, and really, I don't even know if she's right or not.

She sighs, shakes her head, and then calmly opens my door, half throws herself out of the truck and pukes half a dozen beers and some potato chips all over the pavement.

Less than three minutes later, she sits back down, just as calmly, as if she hadn't just puked her guts and a lung up, and we look at each other and chuckle.

"Tic tac?"

"That'd be nice."

I laugh a little more, then turn my keys in the ignition and try to get myself off the backroads and onto the highway to take the poor, puking drunk girl back home.

--

I think that I've changed and grown up and fallen apart more in the last year and a half than I ever could've imagined, and I'm trying to forget tonight but Jessica's words about my wasting my life trying to live in a memory of my sixteen year old self keep dancing around in my ecstasy driven thoughts and it's scaring me, because what if she's right?

What if I've wasted all this time caught in August before my junior year? And what if I could've already been happy again if I wasn't waiting for the past to replay itself again and again until I can finally get whatever it is exactly that I've been missing?

I don't miss her. I don't. I don't miss what we could've been, I just miss the feelings and the feeling of absolute carefreeness that I'd captured for a split second, naked on top of my best friend.

I don't know what I'm going on about and I don't know if I really care at all, or if it's just the drugs and my self fueled self destruction and the misery I've built myself around.

My foot is twitching.

I'll just focus on that. I'll focus on that and turn my muscle spasms into a lullaby and I'll talk myself to sleep, mumbling nonsense about pumpkin pie and ham sandwiches and how fucking cold it is, anything to stop from really thinking, until I somehow manage to pass out on my couch.

--

By the time I've woken up, it's one in the afternoon, my hand's numb and my seventy pound pitbull is sleeping on me. I don't mean in the cute, affectionate dog kind of way, I mean she's literally sleeping _on_ me, like I'm a couch cushion.

How she managed that, I don't even want to know, but I'm trying to roll my incredibly hungover self off the couch without waking her up, and somehow I actually succeed and I'm yawning and stretching and squeezing my hand while the blood rushes back.

Fucking pins and needles.

Ow.

Ow. Fucking ow. Why do I have to sleep in such awkward positions?

I'm running my good hand through my hair and staring up at the ceiling, wondering how it's possible to feeling so completely shitty when I felt so completely amazing twelve hours ago while I trudge to the bathroom on the other side of my apartment and throw what little clothing I'm wearing onto the floor, and then I climb into a boiling hot shower.

Thank god for small favors like warm running water and bath and body works body wash. What would I do without them?

I don't even want to know.

--

It's three in the morning and I'm driving aimlessly around. And when I say aimlessly, I mean completely aimlessly. I've driven to the southern border of Washington, then up to the northern border and I considered driving north to Canada and Vancouver but then I just turned around and now I'm heading south again, with two empty cans of low carb monster sitting in the center console and a cigarette dangling from my lips.

I don't know anymore. I don't know anything and I don't know why I'm thinking so god damn much, I just can't stop now, like the drugs have all just permanently altered my brain chemistry and I can't ever go back to being sober and being able to just turn my stupid introspective mind off again.

And now my phone is ringing. I thought I turned it off, but apparently I didn't and when I look at the caller ID for once in my life, I see that it's Carly and it's definitely too late to turn my phone off now and I can't ignore her call because she's Carly.

It's the last thing I need, talking to her or even seeing her name right now but I'm hopeless when it comes to her. It's kind of pathetic, really.

"What's up?"

"You, like always," She says, laughing but her voice is hoarse and as much as an idiot as I am, I'm not dumb enough not to know that she's been crying again.

"True, but besides me and you and whoever this asshole is who keeps trying to cut me off, what's up?"

"Can you come over?" Carly asks softly, and she's breathing so loudly that I can hear it over the phone and I just know that she's sitting there biting her lip like she's afraid to even let me hear her cry, which makes no sense because she's the one who wears her emotions on her sleeve and I'm the one who's terrified of admitting I feel.

"Uhm, sure, but it might take a while, I'm kind of like, ten miles south of the Canadian border,"

"Should I even ask?"

"No, no you shouldn't. I'll be back in an hour and a half tops though, if you still want me to stop by," I tell her, half praying she'll say yes and half praying she'll say that she's going to be asleep by then.

My fucking mind is split in half.

"Actually, I'll go over to your place." She says, and I wish I knew what she was thinking or feeling or _something, _but then I don't because I'm sure I'll be let down, even though I'm honestly not too sure what I want in the first place.

"Alright, I'll be there soon,"

"I love you, bye," She says quickly, and before I can say anything the line's gone dead and now I'm even more unsure of myself and everything than I ever was.

Oh fuck, what am I going on about?

I don't care. I really, truly don't, because hasn't it been established by now that I can't possibly be in love with her, if anything it's just the memories?

It's just the memories of some teenage feelings and I'll get my head back on straight sooner or later.

--

I've always felt guilty fucking around with heroin and meth and coke, in a weird way. Not because I feel like some kind of failure or the poster child of the gateway drugs thing, but because there's no denying how many lives they've destroyed and I feel like I'm being some kind of obnoxious, stupid teenager with the mindset that I'm invincible while I flirt with self destruction. It's like because I'm not addicted or shooting up and I'm seventeen years old and I'm just using them for a good time, I'm belittling every person they destroyed.

It's so hard to describe, but it almost makes sense. It's sort of like survivor's guilt, now that I think about it. Not quite, but it's a close enough comparison.

This ramble comes from the fact that it's five in the morning and Carly and me are sitting in my bedroom, and she's watching me with a bottle of vodka in her hand while I snort lines of coke and smoke bowls and contemplate popping an oxycontin, but I really should give my body a break.

And she's sitting there, chugging vodka like I could never have imagined her and she looks like she's about to cry, wearing that same pained expressing she's been walking around with and she won't talk about it. It's like she's a sixteen year old me and she's terrified of admitting that anything can touch her or break her or make her feel anything at all, and I wouldn't be too surprised because she does always seem to take after me. It's like we're two people with the same blueprints and different architects, and it's kind of weird to watch us just get more and more different when at the center of it all, we're exactly the same.

Like how I'm a small time drug dealer, huge drug user, and I couldn't give a fuck about school or anything anymore because I'm too busy sitting around thinking supposedly important thoughts and analyzing this past of mine to try to find where I went wrong, as if it would let me fix myself. And her? She smokes pot. She drinks. But guess what? She's getting a full ride to some prestigious east coast college, I just know it. She scored something like a 2200 on her SAT, she still bothers to show up to school and play her varsity sports and the acoustic guitar in her bedroom.

We're almost opposites, but when you boil us down and take away the things we've done, we're the same. We think the same and we're scared of feeling and there's nothing we want more than to just be happy, and we're both looking for it in someone's arms.

Really though, when you boil down all of humanity, we're all like that. And us teenagers, no matter what we put ourselves through and the levels we take our instant gratification to, we can only sink so far. We all hurt the same way, I just know we do. We're all wearing our adolescent misery like shields, and we're all chasing the same happiness that we all threw away. We only sink so far, because in the end life really isn't all that bad unless we make it that way. Hell, I'm in the same state of mind as I was when I was ten years old and I'd cut myself and wonder what the point of it all was, and as when I was fourteen years old and I'd puke up everything I ate and when I was sixteen years old sitting in my pickup truck, watching Carly walk away from me.

No matter what we pile onto ourselves, no matter how far we think we've sunk into some nonexistent point of no return, we all hurt the same way. The drug addict is just as sad as the ten year old cutter.

At least, I hope so, because otherwise I don't know what I'm going to do anymore.

"Carly, I'm not stupid," I finally blurt out, staring at her while she tries to chug a fifth of vodka and then chokes and blows half a shot worth out her nose.

"What?" She asks, wiping her nose like nothing happened at all.

"What's wrong?" I ask, sitting there awkwardly on my spinny chair, trying to figure out if I should just sit here or I should hug her or draw another line and not even look at her.

She sits there for a moment and doesn't say anything, like she's trying to figure it out herself, but I know her better than that. She knows exactly what's wrong, she just won't admit it. I was her, once upon a time. I still am.

"I gave her everything and she left," She finally mumbles, "It's just a fucking slap in the face,"

In my head, I think, 'yeah, I know exactly what you mean actually,' but then I feel horribly guilty for even thinking it. I'm a terrible person.

I look at her for another moment, still completely devoid of any inkling of what I'm supposed to do or say, but then I'm thinking that if she's just like me, she wants a hug.

So I hug her. I walk across the room and sit on her lap and hug her, and she smiles just the tiniest little bit and leans against me while she cries.

I knew you felt too.

I know you're just like me.

And I'm at a loss now, because I'm not supposed to cry and I never do, so what does she want now? I have no idea. I really don't, so I just sit there and tell it's okay, she'll be okay and it's going to pass her by eventually, and at some point I guess something went through to her because she's looking at me with her fingers in my hair, and I can't help but try to remember the last time I brushed my teeth, and fuck, what if I have coffee breath?

She sits there for a minute and looks at me like she's studying me, and maybe she's biting her lip but I'm not quite sure, and I can't help but think that I want to kiss her, the drunk girl in front of me with vodka and pot and cigarettes laced around her breath like beautiful poison.

I catch myself again, thinking that there's any leftover feelings for her but there aren't, it's just the memories catching hold of me again and I'm not sure where that leaves me, but it can't be too good. And I'm sitting here on top of her trying to stop myself from thinking at all, when she pulls my head down to hers and kisses me, soft and trembling like she's afraid of me, and I can't help but blink a couple of times, like maybe I'm dreaming or hallucinating but hallucinations aren't this vivid and they don't exist when all you've got in your system is a quarter gram of coke, and dreams don't make you feel.

I can't help it.

I'm hopeless.

I kiss her back.

And then we're sitting there and kissing and she's still shaking like she's crying or afraid and I wish I could tell her that there isn't anything to be afraid of, but that's a lie. I hate liars but I keep telling myself lies and everyone around me.

She's gone as quickly as she threw herself back into me, and I'm looking at her and I'm at a loss, and the first thing I think is, 'oh, it was a thank-you-for-being-there kind of kiss', but she's giving me that _look_ while she bites her lip, and I have no idea what to think now, so I just sit and think everything and run all the probable causes through my head like love's a chemical reaction you can just do tests on and measure reactions. But then it's gone again, all gone again and my head goes blank when she kisses me again, and again, and then again and I'm completely at a loss, and I think I may have just forgotten how to think.

And then it comes creeping back, slowly, and she's looking at me like _she's_ scared of _me_ right now, but god if only she knew, and the first thing out of my mouth once I'm sure I can form comprehensible english again is, "Should I even ask?"

Carly's looking at the ground, at the wall, at anything but my face and she's looking for the words, I can tell because she's always had that look on her face around everyone, like she just has to find the right words to please everyone.

"I don't know," She says simply, but she does. She knows something, I can just tell by that tone. It's the same one we always use when we know what the feelings are but we don't know what we want, or at least that's how it is for me. "It's like, I like you, but then I don't and we're terrible for each other and I kind of just want to kiss you,"

I blink again, and look at her, and then trail my eyes down her arm to the vodka she's still holding in her hand, and it's almost completely gone. This isn't her talking. It's the alcohol. Fuck that 'through drunken minds speak sober hearts' bullshit, she's horny and I'm here.

Or she's lonely and I'm here.

Or I'm just here.

But that last one most likely isn't the case.

I don't know what I want from her, or what I even want from myself so I just sit and look at her some more, because apparently half our relationship is made up of staring at each other and figuring out what we want, and then I'm kissing her and she's kissing me back and we're kissing again, and the glass bottle clinks as it hits the ground and she's got her hands twisted around the fabric of my shirt.

It's all coming back to me now, and the feelings and goosebumps and chills aren't just fond distant memories anymore, they're right here shooting down my spine and chasing down my arms and my chest feels like it's swelling as though it could burst, and I'm realizing it wasn't just the memories. It was never about the past or what didn't happen and what did or missing the feelings, they were just all I had to go on.

And now I'm terrified because she can break me all over again, just like that.

The part of me that's willing to give up that easily and give everything to her all over again with a single fucking kiss brought this on, but the part of me that's older and smarter and less willing to break myself into a million pieces over a stupid girl who doesn't fucking want me and never has is the one that forces me to stand up and pop the OC 80 in my drawer and lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling and not care about what must be going through her head right now.

I want to say something, I do. I want her to say something. I want one of us to say anything, but we're both at a loss for words again so we just sit here and milk the silence and the moments for everything they're worth while they turn into minutes, until it's been twenty minutes and I've completely lost comprehension of the world and I decide I want to piece my lip.

"I'm piercing my lip," I tell her while I poke my mouth and decide that I can't feel pain, and then I'm stumbling towards the bathroom with a sewing needle in my hand.

"Uhm, Sam, bad idea,"

I mumble something incomprehensible even to me and grab my lip and try to shove the needle through it with my shaking hands, but it's so much easier when someone else who's actually trained to piece things does it, and then I'm standing her with a needle halfway through my lip and I'm trying to force it through as if my life depends on it.

"Are you okay?" She asks, and I barely hear her like she's in a play or move and I'm not supposed to say anything, I'm just supposed to sit back and enjoy the show.

And once I'm almost through the last layer of skin, my vision's blurring and I've lost interest, I just need to go lay down because my head's swimming. I'm turning around and I feel like I just tripped, and then the world all turns off before I even hit the ground.

I don't know how long I've been out for by the time I'm conscious again, but I know that something's horribly wrong and the flashing orange block in half my vision only adds to this, and she's looking at me, at least I think she is, I can't really tell because everything's blurry and soft and fuzzy and it's terrifying.

"Oh my god, Sam?" She's freaking out, I think, because her voice is cracking and I can't remember how to speak or move and I'm trying to move or flail or something, _anything, _but I can't even tell if it's working, until I manage to finally mumble or choke or whatever I sound like that I'm overdosing.

I don't know where she is, she's gone, I'm blind, I just hear her voice and she's asking, "Should I call an ambulance?" and I can't tell what's in her voice, she just sounds calm like she doesn't care at all but I don't know. I don't know anything, I don't even know what anything is or knowing or anything, until all of a sudden I can move again and I'm dry heaving towards the floor, like maybe I'm not going to stay like this or die on this fucking bathroom floor, but nothing's coming out.

She pushes the garbage can towards me and finally white spit dribbles out of my mouth and I just keep choking and heaving and I don't care about breathing anymore, because things are recognizable again and I'm able to make the connection, somehow in my ridiculously high, dying mind that if I keep doing this I'll get it all out and I'll be okay.

And then it's over. It's over and I'm high as anything but I know where I am and I can see her again, I can see Carly and I'm trying to piece together what just happened and when I do, I just keep looking at her and then I'm hugging her, almost crying but I can't cry, like someone's poured super glue in my tear ducts and I'm mumbling over and over again, "You stayed with me, you fucking stayed with me," and she's stiff and shaking at the same time and she isn't saying anything, she's just sitting on my bathroom floor with me and hugging me back while I come back down and my mind starts working again and I start to realize what the hell just happened, the sheer size of it and how fucking lucky I am, that it was two oxycontin I swallowed, not one, and I was too high to notice.

"How long was I out for?" I finally ask, when I'm seeing clearly again and my mind isn't filled with concrete anymore.

"I dunno, like a minute," She tells me, but that doesn't make sense. It felt like half an hour, at least, but then I realize if I'd been out for half an hour she would've called an ambulance.

I'm sitting on the ground and I'm looking at myself and poking my body, like there's any way in hell I could've broken something or there could be any more damage than what's already been done.

"Jesus christ, I'm fucking clammy," I mumble to the ground, and as I'm coming down I start shaking because I'm terrified. Not because I think it's going to come back again, because I know I'm okay, but it just hit me what just happened and how god damn fucking lucky I am.

I just overdosed. I just fucking overdosed on fucking opiates. Fucking overdosed.

"I need to sleep," I tell her, even though the clock's heading towards six in the morning. I don't give a fuck. I need to sleep and I need to stop, I knew I needed a break and I didn't care and now here I am.

"Are you okay now?" She asks, and I can't blame her, because it's not like she can see inside my head and see the difference between now and five minutes ago.

"Yeah, yeah I'm okay, I'm just high out of my fucking mind," I tell her, and then I'm pulling myself up and holding onto the sink and the wall and the door and then Carly while I stumble back towards my bedroom and collapse onto my bed.

She's sitting next to me, pulling blankets on top of me and pushing hair off my sweaty forehead, and she says, stumbling over her words and her voice shaking enough to match her body, "It was your fucking eyes, Sam, it was like you weren't even fucking there,"

I open my eyes and look up at her and try to focus as much as I can, and I tell her, "I'm okay now, see?" as if looking at my dilated pupils means that I'm perfectly okay. And then they're closed again and it feels so good to be falling asleep, and I'm mumbling again and again that she stayed with me, nobody would ever stay with me, as if it's the most life changing and bizarre part of tonight.

--

I don't even realize that she's laying in my bed next to me, her head resting on my chest until after I've lit a cigarette and I'm laying there smoking and I notice that _something _is breathing on my shoulder, and then I glance down and it's Carly and she's barely got her eyes open and there's purple bags under them.

"How come you're still awake?" I ask, looking down at her rather dumbfounded.

She mumbles something incomprehensible into my shirt and shakes her head.

"Carly?"

"You're okay," She says simply, and then she's asleep within seconds.

I look at her, because there isn't really much else I can do right now. I'm trying to make my groggy brain work and I think I'm sort of stunned, but that's not the right word. It's so hard to describe, but it's just like, shit, she just stayed up all night watching me to make sure I didn't die or something.

I dunno. It's sweet. Sweet isn't a strong enough word but I can't think of one that is.

I need coffee. I need lots of fucking coffee, right now.

It's all falling into place with my pathetic circle all over again, and that just means that I'm walking right into disaster again. We're going to drive ourselves right off a cliff because there's a curve in the road and we're too blind to see it.

--

"Hey, you wanna buy another eightball?" Jared's asking, and I'm standing there with a joint in one hand and a can of bud light in the other with music practically pulsing right through me, and Carly's somewhere or other in this crowded dirty room drinking herself silly.

"Shit man, I would, but I fucking od'd on oxy last night. It's just beer and pot for me for a while," I tell him, laughing at myself, because it's actually kind of embarrassing.

"Holy shit, _you_ od'd? Never thought I'd see that day. How much did you take?" He asks, looking genuinely surprised. I guess I'm more well known for my ability to hold drugs than I thought.

"Like, 160,"

"Shit,"

"Yeah," I say, laughing a little more and finally catching sight of Carly with a shot glass in each hand. "Aw fuck man, I gotta go stop my crazy best friend from giving herself alcohol poisoning,"

He glances over at Carly, and laughs a little.

"Alright, I'll call you sometime,"

"Alright," And then I'm sauntering over to Carly, and I'm just realizing by the way that I'm walking and the way the ground seems like it's warping and running away from my feet that I'm way more fucked up than I thought I was.

"Dude, you're not gonna have a liver by the end of the week," I tell her, and she shakes her head and downs both shots.

"It's already gone," She chuckles, pouring herself another and downing that one too.

I shake my head at her, and in a split second, without any explanation at all, I feel like my heart just broke and I just stopped giving a fuck.

"Hey, I'm gonna go try to sell some of this pot, call me when you need a ride okay?" I say, not really sure how I'm keeping my voice or my body from shaking, and I'm not sure if it's even working but she doesn't notice, she just says okay.

I want some heroin. I want something, anything, and everything.

Fuck this. Fuck my fucking body, if it shits out on me I'll just lay on the ground and turn blue and laugh. I hate this. I hate everything about this and I don't want to ever stop.

"Hey, yo Derek," He isn't hard to find.

"What's up? Change your mind about that eightball?"

"Nah, do you have any dope? And a syringe?" I ask, not even giving a fuck about the look on his face or the faces of the stupid cheerleaders around him with their stupid beers in their hands like alcohol is the hardest drug in the world and they're the shit for drinking it.

Fuck you.

"It's $80 a gram for you," He tells me, and then he's leading me to his car and handing me this little syringe already loaded with tar and water and a little bundle of tar and I hand over 4 twenty dollar bills and then practically storm off, and I can feel his eyes on me like he's wondering if he's going to see me again.

And then Jessica's standing in front of me, and she's got this drunk look on her face and I'm smiling at her, and the next thing I know she's kissing me and I'm kissing her back and I'm stumbling backwards upstairs with her wrist in my hand and her lips on mine.

There's nothing to be said, no questions to be asked and I think I like it better this way while she pulls my shirt off like she's used to this and having me already, and I'm smiling back at her again, all crooked and intoxicated and she knows it all too well.

She knows what she is and I know what I am and I don't give a fuck.

I don't even know whose bedroom we're in or whose bed this is, but I don't care. I don't care anymore, I really honestly don't think I do, I just want to fuck and shoot up until I drop dead.

"Fuck, Jessie," I mumble while she traces her hands down my chest, along my oddly protruding rib cage and my hip bone, across my breasts and collarbone and her kisses follow her breath along my neck, my shoulder blades and the center of my back.

I'm fumbling with a hair tie and trying to tie off my left arm and pinching an almost ridiculously plump vein, and then I've got a needle in my vein, held with my trembling hand and she's got her own under my jeans.

I'm living the epitome of dirty glamour and just plain old the lowest I can throw myself at seventeen years old.

And it's when I'm just forcing heaven into my veins and feeling my head nod forward that the door opens, and I'm barely interested until my eyes wander up and I realize who it is.

Oh fuck. Why do I feel like the fact that Carly's standing in the doorway and I'm getting fucked and I just shot up heroin and there's still a needle in my arm and she's just staring at me, all added together isn't going to end very well?

She just gives me this look and it's like I understand that some kind of line has just been crossed, but I don't know why. I don't know what it is, I just know that it's been crossed and smeared and spit on.

"Fuck, Sam," She mumbles quietly, and nothing more needs to be said as she turns on her heel and leaves.

This isn't dirty glamour. This is just low. This is just pathetic.

"I have to--" I start, but she cuts me off with a sad little smile.

"I know,"

And I'm walking after her and I don't know what I feel, because I should feel so incredibly good right now with heroin coursing through my body and I do, really, but I don't know if I like it.

I find her outside, walking past my car and she's kicking cans and bottles and the air and I don't know why she's so mad or why I care, but she is and I do.

"Carly," I half shout, and she turns around and she's got this murderous look in her eyes and I can't help but wince.

"Fuck you Sam, just fuck you,"

"What?"

"I can't fucking believe you," She says softly. She doesn't have to yell--it hurts even more this way.

"What, Carly? What? We're not together. We're not fucking together and you don't want me and you never will, so don't you dare. Just don't you fucking dare try to pin everything on me and don't you dare tell me I just lost you, because you've never been mine," I practically spit, and I don't know why I'm so angry but I am. I refuse to let her break me again but it's already happening.

"Just because we're not together doesn't mean there isn't _something!" _She says, with the tendons on her neck sticking out and her fists quenched and I wish I knew how she felt right now. I wish I knew what she wanted and how to give it to you.

She doesn't get it. She never has and she never will.

This always meant the most to me.

"I'm not your property Carly,"

"You think I don't care? You think this all about you? Wake the fuck up Sam, it isn't. Just because I'm not fucking you doesn't mean I don't care," She says, and she says it calmly. She doesn't shake, doesn't waver the way I do and I'm realizing that she isn't me. She doesn't have to drown her misery in opiates and coke to show that she's miserable in the first place, and she doesn't have to be fucking someone to care. She doesn't have to be with someone before they can hurt her.

I think I hurt her too. I think I'm capable of breaking her too.

"You fucked me and you fucking walked away,"

That hurt the most. Two years later, it still fucking hurts.

It all just fucking hurts. The drugs don't work because it still hurts.

"Sam, fucking let it go. We were sixteen and I wasn't ready for this,"

"I've always been here, god damnit, I've always been right here but it's never been me for anything but a good time, you know that? Never. Fucking never, I'm fucking done, I'm fucking sick of this and you and me and waiting for you to make up your fucking mind."

She's walking over to me and she's got her hands on my head, and I think there's tears welling up in my eyes but I can't tell. I can't feel pain but I feel something like someone's hitting my chest with a hot iron or cattle prod.

"Don't fucking touch me," I tell her, but everything in my body is screaming for her not to let go, and she's kissing me and it's like there's pleasure, real pleasure, not drugs and made up feelings coursing through me, but I'm forcing myself away. "Stop kissing me, just stop. Fucking stop all of this,"

"I'm trying," She mumbles, breathing on my lips and then she's kissing me again and I want her to stop but I don't. I want to walk away and just save myself while I can but I'm not strong enough and I want this too much.

"Carly, you fucking walked away,"

"I'm here now," She whispers against my lips, her breath laced with vodka and cigarettes the way it always has been, and it feels like I'm falling back into something familiar and stable.

She's always been here but she's always left.

"You don't get it,"I mumble, but I'm kissing her back and my hand's in her hair, her back and there's goosebumps along her arms and she's trembling again like she did last night.

"It's always been you," She tells me, and I've given up. I can't keep trying to protect myself and I can't get rid of her, because I'm trying to get rid of the one girl who's made me happy without question.

I need to be happy. I need to take away the drugs and the sex because they've become the only thing holding me together, and the money's going to run out and my heart's going to give out and I'll be gone. This will all be gone one day, and I can't push her away now.

I need her.

She's kissing me again under Seattle lights next to my truck again, and it's all so familiar and it's all overflowing with nostalgia but I need this, I need something or somebody to make all the world stop for just a moment, and it's always been her. Always. It's exactly the same, it's all the same and she's going to walk away again, I just know she is, but it's the voice in my head that tells me that things do change that makes me keep kissing her, that lets her keep kissing me and press me up against the door of my truck and slip her hands under my shirt.

It's all the same. It's all the same and I'll fall apart all over again to have this for just one more night.

"Carly, it's not me, you just need somebody and I'm here," I tell her, and I'm scared of the words and the way they hang in the air, because what if they change her mind?

If they do, maybe I'm just saving myself from and giving myself just a little less heartbreak.

Nobody's ever been able to make me feel this much, and god damnit, she can't fucking play with me.

I let her, though.

I just wish she'd know better.

She's shaking her head and kissing my neck and I'm shaking the way she was, the way I think she still is and I feel like I'm floating but my limbs feel so heavy and my mind's stuck on the ground right next to my feet.

"No, fucking christ Carly, no," I finally say, and I've made up my mind.

I'm not letting this happen again. I'm not. I'll leave her in my dust this time and she'll stand next to my fucking car while I fucking drive away and she'll find her own way home or into someone else's bed and she'll know how much this fucking hurts.

I've got the keys in the ignition and my foot on the accelerator and a cigarette in my mouth before she can even say anything, and it's better this way.

If she said a single word, I'd get out of the car and cry and kiss her and refuse to stop.

--

I am going to drive until I die. I'm going to drive along these streets until I run out of gas and the car breaks down in the middle of the road and then I'll just sit here until I find out what I want or what I need to do or I pass out in a drug induced stupor and I wake up in a hospital bed and then maybe I'll know what the fuck I'm supposed to do or what I want or if anything I'm doing right now is going to end in anything but me being miserable and wallowing in self pity.

I love these drugs. I love these cigarettes and these empty bottles of beer and the pills I take but what have I gotten?

Nothing.

I keep thinking I've found my way out peaking on shrooms or acid and I keep thinking I've found happiness in opiate euphoria but by the time I wake up every morning, it's gone and I just want more. I want to get higher and higher until I've died or I'm forever changed and the person I used to be is dead and gone and no amount of crying will bring her back.

I think I've already passed that point.

My body's giving out on me and my paychecks are gone and I have nothing to show for it. Absolutely nothing. I have all these vague thoughts and something I try to consider truth and inner peace but it's all a lie. It's all jibberish and if it was real, I wouldn't be doing this anymore. I've just lost myself. I lost the girl I used to be and now all I have left is the drugs I take and some meaningless past I keep trying to decipher like that's where I went wrong. Like, if I figure out what was wrong there and what went wrong in my brain, I'll know why I am what I am today in this car on this stupid Washington state highway, but it isn't. I didn't go wrong in my truck that night when I was sixteen or when I was fourteen and I threw up in my toilet or when I was ten with a razorblade in my hand.

I'm going wrong right now and blaming it on the past. I'm blaming my inability to function on the past of a girl who isn't even me anymore.

Who the fuck am I?

I really don't know at this point. I don't have anything except these drugs and these thoughts and I'm empty without them. I carved myself out and filled the spaces with chemicals and I think it's the past that ruined me.

Fuck this. Fuck fucking fuck. I'm done. I've wasted too much time to fix it now. It's gone. I'm gone. I had my chance and I threw it away and it's too late now.

I'm trapped. I'm trapped and the only way out is to give up.

There's a curve in the road ahead, and there's a ditch and I'm pressing hard on the accelerator because I want this. I want my car upside down in a ditch and I want my face through the windshield because there's no way for me to make myself happy anymore, there just isn't.

The past is chasing me around in every waking moment and in my dreams and it's going to follow me around for the rest of my life, I'm realizing, and I can't change it anymore. I can't change myself back to who I was because I don't want that anymore. I wanted the life I've made for myself, I always have, and now that I have it I've realized how much of a dead end it is but I can't think of anything else I want. I don't want to live to go to college and work from nine to five and live in a house with a picket fence and a little kid but I don't want this anymore.

I don't want this anymore. Everyone keeps saying there's more to life than this but I don't want any of that. I don't want any part of this anymore.

I swerve.

At the last second, I swerve and I can feel my truck spinning under me and I can hear my tires squealing and I can smell the rubber burning and I don't know why I stopped, but I'm too much of a coward to try to kill myself.

I'm just pathetic.

Am I more pathetic for wanting it or for chickening out?

And for a moment, I think that I'm going to tip over and fall into that ditch anyway, even though I just decided I don't want it anymore, but then the truck stops moving and I'm sitting here shaking and I'm the only one on the road and I'm shaking at the wheel and breathing way too hard and crying.

Who the fuck am I?

Fuck.

I don't know what to do.

And once I've found my composure again, I'm hitting the gas again and pulling a u-turn and heading back home.

I need to sleep. I need to lay in bed and watch tv and eat some ham and gain back all the weight I've lost from all these drugs and I need to be sober for just one fucking day. I need to lay in bed and not go out for just one day, because I've lost myself in these needles and bowls and lines of coke.

--

It's been a week. It's been a week of self imposed solitude and sitting around the house chain smoking cigarettes and watching reruns of Malcolm in the Middle and laying in bed awake for half the night and thinking and I haven't found anything. I can't find who I used to be or what's made me into who I am now.

Maybe the only thing that's changed is the inside of my head. Maybe to everyone else, I'm the same girl I've always been and I'm the only one who thinks that something so drastic has happened to me. Maybe that's why I can't figure it out: because nothing's changed.

But that can't be right.

The inside of my head is what makes me me. If that changed, everything about me changed.

I don't know why I care.

I don't care.

I'm sick of this. I'm sick of feeling so hopeless.

I can't do this.

--

I'm sitting in my truck. I'm not even going anywhere, I'm just sitting here staring at my phone with my knees tucked into my chest and my head bobbing up and down.

I refuse to be like her. I can't just leave this and not say something. There has to be closure, there just has to be.

But maybe then it'll hurt even more. Maybe then it'll just completely ruin us and it'll go past the point of no return. I can't lose her, I just can't.

I can't leave this alone.

I can't get away from her.

There isn't any hope for me, is there?

I'm hitting her name on my phone and listening to the white noise and the vague sound of the phone ringing and I'm rehearsing my words over and over in my head, because it's the only way I can think of to stop myself from going wrong again.

I can't go wrong again.

"Hello?"

"Carly?" I ask, even though I know it's her.

"Sam?"

"Can I come over?"

It's never me that asks this, but I'm asking it now and she sounds almost taken aback to hear my voice for the first time in a week.

Maybe she thought I hate her. Maybe she thinks I do hate her, but I don't know how I could ever do that.

"Yeah, sure,"

I don't know what to say to that, so we sit in silence for a moment like this is so fucking hard, and then I mumble a soft goodbye and kill the line and then I sit here in this car smoking a cigarette and wondering what it is that I want anyway.

I don't know what's good for me and what I want and if they're the same thing or not.

--

I'm standing outside her door with my hand hanging in the air like I'm suddenly terrified of this and the door's heated and if I touch it I'll get burnt and lay here and die.

That's too overdramatic.

I want to turn my thoughts off because I overanalyze everything and it always fucks me over, but it's never that easy for someone like me.

She opens the door before I've even knocked and then we're standing here and staring at each other like we're not sure what's happening or what the right words are, and all my rehearsed meaningless words have all fallen out my ears and now I'm lost.

"Hey," Carly says simply, and I'm kicking my feet and staring at the ground and kicking my feet.

"Hey,"

She turns on her heel and walks inside, and I guess I'm supposed to follow her because I do, and then we're standing just inside her doorframe and I'm biting my lip and she's looking at anything but my face.

She knows.

Maybe then I'll hurt her a little less.

If I was ever capable of hurting her in the first place.

"Carly, I can't," I finally blurt out, and before she can say anything to change my mind I'm walking away, because I'm too scared of what'll happen if I don't.

I'm terrified of her.

"Yes you can, and I can too," She says, but I refuse to stop. I'll fucking leave her behind just like she did to me for my sophomore year revenge no matter how much it fucking hurts.

It all fucking hurts.

"Who's walking away now, huh?" She finally shouts, and it cuts through me. It couldn't have hurt more if she'd just shot me in the back.

The past is playing on repeat because I've turned around and I've got tears in my eyes again, and I don't know why and I'm telling her that I can't do it, I can't be like her, and she winces but she can't completely react before I'm kissing her.

She's kissing me back and there's no hesitation this time, she doesn't shake or tremble with her hands on my back and mine around her neck and I just realized how much I missed her.

It was never about the memories. It was always about missing her.

And I'm terrified, I'll admit it, and she's got her tongue in my mouth and she's pulling me onto the couch in the center of the room. This is too familiar and the words were even the same but I'm afraid that this time it'll be me that walks away and I'll have nobody to blame but myself this time around.

There's some part of me that's died. The part that let me trust her completely and give myself over to her completely, without all these stupid fears that she's going to leave or get scared again but I've turned into her.

She's pulling away from me and looking up at me through my hair on her face, and I'm shaking and my chest actually hurts and I feel like I can't breathe. She's going to walk away again and I'll be lost all over again.

"Drive me somewhere," She tells me, smiling just the tiniest little bit, and I will, in a minute, right after I kiss her again.

I'm so afraid of her.

She pulls me up and grabs a joint off the table and she's leading me out the door and I'm trembling but I want this too much and I know this could just possibly be different.

I'll never feel so safe again, I swear I won't.

But love always remains.

--

10 days of writing this until my fingers hurt.

I think I used to see so much of my younger self in Sam that I've started writing her entirely as myself with my own self destruction. This is almost completely autobiographical.

The title and the last two lines are from the song Love always remains. The last line and title of the biggest lie are from the Elliott Smith song the biggest lie. I figured I'd keep that :P

Sorry this is so long. I'm so glad it's finished D:


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